Course Density by State: Complete Stats

[Luke@DiscTrips]

As far as Wisconsin, Minn., and Iowa, what is considered the best of the three as far as quality?

That's a tough call... I'm partial to Minnesota, having lived there & played 62 of its courses, but when people have asked me that, I've usually settled on Wisconsin. I've played 22 there and just have the most vivid memories of all of them. Even the small-town courses in Wisconsin are memorable, whereas Iowa (and Minnesota, to some extent) is sort of two-tier: the big fancy courses in the cities, and the random sprinkling of somewhat generic 9s in the small towns.

But I like generic small-town 9s more than most people, so basically, I love all three of them almost equally. Gun to my head, though, I'd choose Wisconsin. Plamann Park in Appleton has to be a top 1% course, and the High Bridge compound pretty much seals the deal.

 

[Luke@DiscTrips]

Luke,

Can you compute the population density for each state (number of people per sq. mile) and then compare this to the number of courses?

I've tried this with states like Alaska and Rhode Island, but they seem to skew the results.

Yeah, I looked at that, but the units just don't really work in a meaningful way. Think about population density as a fraction of "people/square mile," and then try to stick Courses in there somehow. You have two options:

A) Dividing them, making it "Courses / (People/Sq.Mi.)," which mathematically equals "Course Square Miles per Person." Doesn't make a lot of sense.
B) Multiplying them, getting "Course People per Square Mile." Hmm.

So, you have to keep population & land space separate until after ranking them, then blend the rankings together. (e.g., Iowa was #1 and #2 in those lists, easily combining to be #1 overall.)

Oh, and Donovan -- I'm still working on the best way to pass along the raw data... I haven't forgotten!

 

[Adam Schneider]

Oh, and Donovan -- I'm still working on the best way to pass along the raw data... I haven't forgotten!

Google Spreadsheets.

 

[DGtourist]

How does the data move if you were to divide by number of holes instead of courses? I believe this weight would take into account 9 hole courses, and penalize the states (as IL was stated to be) that have many 9 hole courses.

 

[Texconsinite]

The crazy thing is, many of the amazing courses in MN and WI either have very few reviews or no reviews, so the REALLY good courses in the states dont even make the 4.5 criteria (one bad review skews if theres only three reviews). There just aren't enough reviews yet (surprising considering how packed the courses always are).

This is also the reason why IA-WI-MN is the Disc Golf Apex, yet not one course from any of those three states cracks the top rated or top reviewed lists on the DGCR homes page.

Methinks we Midwesterners (myself included) might need to start putting more DGCR flyers up on our courses to get the word out.

 

[Olorin]

Steve West

Along similar lines here's a link to a spreadsheet that has the same kind of numbers. It's quite useful. Steve West does some amazing things with numbers. Go to Disc Golf Course Design by Steve West.

Steve says, "[FONT=Georgia, Garamond, serif]Here is a list of the number of disc golf courses by state and country, compared to the area and population of each. The figures for number of courses and holes are from the PDGA Course Directory as of 02/18/2008. The figures for area and population are from free websites of unknown accuracy.[/FONT]"

He also lists the number of holes per state.

 

[Olorin]

Steve West- City Graphs

The first map on Steve West's City Graphs shows a fascinating graphical representation of course density that confirms what's been said about Iowa-WI-MN.

 

[Luke@DiscTrips]

Okay, just to cap this off, here are some final numbers. I should clarify that my original table was based on PDGA.com's directory, not the DGCR one, but after re-running it with DGCR numbers, which we would all assume are a bit more complete, the rankings barely changed, with an identical top 7. (actually, I'm now using the greater # of the two... a couple states show more courses on PDGA.com) No state moved more than 2 spots either direction, but I suppose the big winner was North Carolina, which shoved Maine out of Top 10. (Maine's feelings are clearly hurt.)

DENSITY RANKINGS (AGAIN)

1. IOWA (411 sq. mi./course, 21,811 people/course)
2. WISCONSIN (489 sq. mi./course, 41,803 people/course)
3. DELAWARE (178 sq. mi./course, 78,615 people/course)
4. MINNESOTA (690 sq. mi./course, 41,251 people/course)
5. ILLINOIS (487 sq. mi./course, 108,005 people/course)
6. KANSAS (1127 sq. mi./course, 38,027 people/course)
7. OHIO (482 sq. mi./course, 123,300 people/course)
8. KENTUCKY (722 sq. mi./course, 75,741 people/course)
9. VERMONT (874 sq. mi./course, 56,478 people/course)
10. NORTH CAROLINA (641 sq. mi./course, 107,869 people/course)

And here are the two top ten lists when isolating the two factors:

POPULATION DENSITY - People Per Course

1. IOWA (21,811 people per course)
2. SOUTH DAKOTA (22,117 people per course)
3. NORTH DAKOTA (26,655 people per course)
4. MONTANA (31,929 people per course)
5. WYOMING (32,677 people per course)
6. KANSAS (38,027 people per course)
7. MINNESOTA (41,251 people per course)
8. WISCONSIN (41,803 people per course)
9. ALASKA (42,717 people per course)
10. MAINE (43,907 people per course)

DISPERSION OF COURSES - Square Miles per Course

1. DELAWARE (178 sq. mi. per course)
2. IOWA (411 sq. mi. per course)
3. OHIO (482 sq. mi. per course)
4. ILLINOIS (487 sq. mi. per course)
5. WISCONSIN (489 sq. mi. per course)
6. CONNECTICUT (504 sq. mi. per course)
7. MASSACHUSETTS (621 sq. mi. per course)
8. NEW JERSEY (623 sq. mi. per course)
9. PENNSYLVANIA (640 sq. mi. per course)
10. NORTH CAROLINA (641 sq. mi. per course)

Holes per state and per city-radius would be a fun next step in this conversation... To think that there are 33,000 holes in the U.S. (per Steve West's data)?? That is awesome. More fun with math to come, hopefully...

 

[Luke@DiscTrips]

Oops -- I should also point out that while the order in the first set of rankings was right, the listed "sq. mi./course" in parentheses was mismatched with the state name in many cases. My bad! But again, it was just a labeling problem... that's fixed in this latest post (above), and will be correct when I get around to posting/sending the Excel file to anyone interested. The hazards of data analysis...

 

[Olorin]

DENSITY RANKINGS (AGAIN)

1. IOWA (411 sq. mi./course, 21,811 people/course)
2. WISCONSIN (489 sq. mi./course, 41,803 people/course)
3. DELAWARE (178 sq. mi./course, 78,615 people/course)
4. MINNESOTA (690 sq. mi./course, 41,251 people/course)
5. ILLINOIS (487 sq. mi./course, 108,005 people/course)
6. KANSAS (1127 sq. mi./course, 38,027 people/course)
7. OHIO (482 sq. mi./course, 123,300 people/course)
8. KENTUCKY (722 sq. mi./course, 75,741 people/course)
9. VERMONT (874 sq. mi./course, 56,478 people/course)
10. NORTH CAROLINA (641 sq. mi./course, 107,869 people/course)

Well, now I'm confused. Your initial list had the courses sorted in order of sq miles/ course. But now it appears that Iowa had Delaware's sq miles/ course. And Delaware had Ohio's sq miles/ course. Ohio had MA's and so on... So was this first list wrong?

Also, could you explain how you came up with the list "DENSITY RANKINGS (AGAIN)"? Did you just add the ranks of Popul Density and Dispersion? (But Wisconsin was 8 + 5 then ends in 2nd??) I don't see how you came up that order.

 

[Olorin]

I'm not trying to be a gadfly, but I'd be more interested in seeing the ratio of courses/person than I would people/course. I'd like to turn it around and say that if a state has more people then they should have more courses.

 

[Olorin]

FWIW, here's a table of Courses per Million people (using Steve West's data). Once again, Iowa is the winner! States with lots of courses and a relatively low population are highest. States with higher populations, esp. the Northeast, rank lowest.

Iowa, 43.8
South Dakota, 43.8
North Dakota, 36.1
Montana, 27.8
Wyoming, 25.5
Kansas, 24.0
Wisconsin, 23.1
Nebraska, 22.7
Minnesota, 22.6
Idaho, 20.3
Vermont, 19.3
Alaska, 18.1
Colorado, 17.4
Maine, 16.6
Oregon, 15.9
Oklahoma, 13.5
Kentucky, 11.5
Mississippi, 11.0
Delaware, 10.7
New Mexico, 10.4
Michigan, 9.7
South Carolina, 8.5
North Carolina, 8.4
Illinois, 8.2
Ohio, 7.5
Indiana, 7.5
Missouri, 7.4
West Virginia, 7.2
Utah, 6.9
Texas, 6.6
Tennessee, 6.5
Washington, 6.2
Arkansas, 6.1
Virginia, 5.4
Alabama, 5.3
Pennsylvania, 4.8
New Hampshire, 4.6
Georgia, 4.5
Arizona, 4.2
Hawaii, 3.9
Louisiana, 3.5
California, 3.4
Florida, 3.1
Maryland, 2.9
Massachusetts, 2.8
Connecticut, 2.6
Nevada, 2.5
Rhode Island, 1.9
New York, 1.7
New Jersey, 1.4


P.S.- I sure wish there was a way to post tables on here. Things like this could look so much nicer.

 

[Olorin]

South Carolina, 8.5
North Carolina, 8.4

Notice how South Carolina edges out North Carolina. SC has half the courses and half the population of NC. This seems evidence to me that the table above doesn't really tell us anything very useful.

 

[Donovan]

This stuff may not tell us a whole lot, but I gotta say, it sure is fun looking through everything and seeing how things stack up. Thanks som much for taking the time you guys!

 

[Luke@DiscTrips]

Well, now I'm confused. Your initial list had the courses sorted in order of sq miles/ course. But now it appears that Iowa had Delaware's sq miles/ course. And Delaware had Ohio's sq miles/ course. Ohio had MA's and so on... So was this first list wrong?

Also, could you explain how you came up with the list "DENSITY RANKINGS (AGAIN)"? Did you just add the ranks of Popul Density and Dispersion? (But Wisconsin was 8 + 5 then ends in 2nd??) I don't see how you came up that order.

I covered these two good questions back in posts 48 & 49... Yes, the square mileage *labels* in the parentheses were a bit out of order (mismatched) in the original list, but the *actual rankings* (the order of states) were right. I fixed that in the newer top 10 (and in the spreadsheet behind it). And Wisconsin comes in 2nd overall, even though it's 5th and 8th, because it's the only state other than Iowa that's in both top 10s. Iowa is the lowest total at 1+2=3, and WI is 8+5=13, but the next-best combined score adds to way more than 13.

And finally, I totally agree that Courses per Person (or Million People, as it were) is a much more intuitive way to think about it. All you have to do is take the reciprocal of my numbers (1/x) and you'll have Steve West's numbers (or very close to them). My population-only top 10 is identical for the first 7 or 8 states to his list; I'm using 2007 population figures and very current course counts, and he used February 2008 course counts and I'm not sure which population figures. I was just using People per Course because it looks funny to say "9.5 courses per million" for a state with 500,000 people in it (e.g., Alaska).

Hope that helps!